There is an increasing realization within the power circles of Pakistan that the country’s political and administrative system has collapsed and that it is no longer capable of serving as a panacea for the multifarious political, economic and social issues confronting the people.
Although Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi recently openly admitted that the present political system has collapsed, he did not specify the reasons for this collapse. A deeper look into the matter, however, would reveal that it is, in fact, the failure of the prevailing democratic system in the country that lies behind the collapse of the political and administrative system. Rather, an even deeper examination would bring to the fore the fact that it is not even the failure of the existing democratic dispensation per se, but the failure of society to give birth to a democratic culture in the country.
The current political and economic crisis in the country has revealed beyond doubt that democracy is far from having taken root in this society of ours. The lack of democracy, which is fundamentally about freedom and tolerance, is nowhere more evident than in the widespread violence and intolerance that have become features of public and political life. Having said this, it is critical to understand that without democracy Pakistan does not have any future and, therefore, democracy has to be promoted anyway.
Though Pakistan has been experiencing a fragile democratic system of government since 2002, there has been a discernible trend whereby elected governments and parliaments have been completing their constitutional tenures. But democracy as an institution has failed to flourish and evolve in the country. There are various reasons for the failure of democracy to evolve as an institution, and these need to be looked into so that the future of democracy in this country can be better understood and predicted.
Each culture and institution, whether of society or the state, evolves from the practices and customs of the people of that society. Against this backdrop, the foremost and underlying cause of the failure of democracy to evolve in Pakistan is the incompatibility of the country’s social structure with the essence and values of a democratic culture. The social structure of Pakistan is largely undemocratic in form and substance. A democratic culture is primarily based on the values of equality and equity, justice, freedom and individualism, together creating a culture of merit, inventiveness and amity. These values are hardly to be found in Pakistan’s prevailing social structure.
The social structure of Pakistan is profoundly tribal and ultraconservative in orientation. In such a social structure, there is hardly any space for the above-mentioned democratic ideals to be attained and consolidated. That is the fundamental reason why symbols of traditional authority such as Khan, Malik, Chaudhry, Wadera and Sardar, on the one hand, and maulvis, on the other, have continued to dominate society through their social power and influence, to the exclusion of the masses and their consciously and freely elected democratic and liberal leaders.
These symbols of traditional authority have been working in collusion to entrench their power bases and ward off any challenge to them. As such a challenge could only come from liberal and democratic figures, values and institutions under the umbrella of a democratic political structure, tribal chieftains and clerical leadership have been trying their utmost to prevent democracy from evolving and taking root.
Traditional authorities and elites have been successful in stunting the growth of democracy in Pakistani society. This is what is really taking place in Pakistan at the moment. The democratic institutions may exist in form, but the social forces that are supposed to sustain and strengthen them have remained weak, allowing traditional power structures to retain their influence over political, economic and social life.
Moreover, in theory, the Pakistani political system, which is outwardly democratic but inwardly not, operates on the principle of one person, one vote. Yet most people cannot exercise their vote freely, either because of pressure from respective traditional authorities and local power brokers or because of their lack of education, awareness and access to independent information. The existence of elections, therefore, does not necessarily mean the existence of democracy in its true sense. Democracy requires not merely the right to vote but also the freedom and capacity to make informed choices.
Another very important aspect of the failure of democracy to evolve in Pakistan is that the auxiliary institutions, which ought otherwise to provide support to parliament, the people and political leadership in building their capacities for policymaking and policy execution by providing them education and information, have been working at cross purposes. These institutions, which include the bureaucracy and various government departments, have, due to the relatively good education and administrative skills of their human resources, often been able to work for personal and institutional benefits by taking advantage of the ignorance and lack of awareness among the masses.
This is the basic reason why bureaucrats and top civil servants have been enjoying all kinds of perks and privileges out of taxpayers’ money, while the very purpose for which they are there — good governance — remains a pipedream in the state of Pakistan. As the flourishing of true democracy is against the interests of many powerful figures within government institutions, they develop a natural affinity with members of traditional authorities and power structures, thereby helping to stunt the growth of democracy.
It is, therefore, safe to conclude that it is the culture of a society that determines the nature, structure and functions of the institutions of that society, including the state. Looking at the institutions of democracy from that standpoint reveals that the foremost and underlying cause of the failure of a democratic culture to evolve in Pakistan has been the incompatibility between the social structure of the country and the essence and values of a democratic culture.
The success of traditional authorities in this connection has mainly been due to the strategy of traditional power brokers to infiltrate and dominate the institutions of democracy, including parliament, political parties and elected governments. Therefore, it is no surprise that most Pakistani political parties have evolved into family-limited companies, with politics becoming their prime business. Traditional authorities have used their established power bases to dominate the institutions and values of democracy. Thus, the very institutions that could otherwise have served as guarantees for facilitating the flourishing of democracy in Pakistan have instead served as stumbling blocks to its evolution.
Democracy is fundamentally a culture and not merely a system per se. Yes, a political system is generally erected on a democratic base, but such a system cannot function effectively unless the society itself possesses democratic attitudes and values. Even the attitude of a common man and woman in Pakistani society is often not democratic. One can observe this within the institutions of the family, religious places of worship, educational institutions and economic institutions such as markets. Authority, hierarchy, privilege and conformity frequently take precedence over equality, individual freedom, merit, tolerance and open debate.
Therefore, if a true democratic culture has to be promoted in Pakistan, the state must come up with a comprehensive educational strategy to make people understand how democracy flourished in Western societies and how those societies transformed themselves from authoritarian cultures into democratic cultures. Such education would go a long way towards promoting a democratic culture and ultimately developing a democratic system based on that culture. Only then would democracy truly serve the interests of common Pakistanis rather than those of the social, political and economic elite.
Creating more provinces could set the ball rolling for the disentanglement of the stranglehold of traditional authorities over the state and society by bringing governance closer to the people and weakening entrenched centres of power. But the ultimate key remains the development of a democratic culture. Without transforming the social attitudes, values and practices that underpin political institutions, structural reforms alone will not be sufficient. Pakistan’s political and administrative crisis, therefore, cannot be resolved merely by changing governments, redrawing administrative boundaries or introducing new institutional arrangements. The real challenge is to create a society in which democracy becomes a way of life rather than merely a method of choosing governments.